


One Day At A Time

by onebatch2batch



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Late night talks, Valentine's Day Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 17:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13686498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onebatch2batch/pseuds/onebatch2batch
Summary: As the tone rings in her ear, she realizes that maybe she’s the only freak who kicked her date out early on Valentine’s Day. Maybe, after so long, he’s trying to have a life again and she’s ruining his evening. Post-TPS





	One Day At A Time

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine’s Day, friends. I have a date with some wine and some editing, but this is for y’all. You make my heart happy.

Karen hates dating. The awkward smiles, the disinterested questions about her career, the quick blunder of strange lips towards her own, as if her mouth is a target and they’re looking for a bullseye. She hates all of it.

Which is why she’s not too sure why she agreed to being set up on a blind date—on Valentine’s Day, of all days. Maybe she’s extra lonely lately, since Matt passed away and Foggy took his job and life and friendship up town to his fancy new job. Maybe when Trish had suggestively said, “Karen, no one likes to be alone on Valentine’s Day. If anything, don’t let him stay the night, y’know?” she hadn’t found a good enough reason to say no.

Brad is nice enough, too. She vaguely considers sleeping with him as she watches him talk, swirling her wine glass. She’s had more than she usually has on dates—gathering courage, she supposes. He’s definitely handsome, but her brain can’t help and compare...compare to what? She thinks _hair too blonde_ , and _skin too smooth_ , and _smile too easy_ , and wonders when she found a type.

Brad walks her all the way up to her apartment, after, and she stands by the door with keys in hand as he kisses her. It’s nice, and he doesn’t use too much tongue, and he keeps his hands to himself. She almost invites him in.

She doesn’t, though. She gives him a too-bright smile and says _thank you for the dinner but I really have to finish an article_ , and he says, _oh I didn’t know you were a journalist_ , even though she had told him before their appetizer arrived and she closes the door in his face.

Her apartment is frigid. She turns the heat on and changes into her comfort clothes, then digs around in her cabinets for a bottle of something strong. The clock reads 8:02pm and she has never cared less about the blank word document in front of her, so she picks up the phone and dials Frank instead.

As the tone rings in her ear, she realizes that maybe she’s the only freak who kicked her date out early on Valentine’s Day. Maybe, after so long, he’s trying to have a life again and she’s ruining his evening. She ends the call on the second ring, turns off her phone, pours herself a drink and commits herself to moping for the rest of the night. She’s on her second glass when there’s a knock on her door.

Frank’s shoulders fill the doorframe when she opens it. He’s in jeans and a coat, and he’s looking at her with one of his side-of-the-mouth smiles, and he laughs and says, “Rough night?” and she maybe laughs too. When he sits on the couch and tucks her under his arm she thinks that this is nice, and why don’t we do this more often. He tells her about his day, the job he’s been working, about group with Curtis. She doesn’t say much in response, just nurses her drink and listens to his voice rumble through his chest.

“How was your day?” He asks after a while, like he’s been putting off asking but he’s too curious to hold back anymore. Karen sighs, tightens her fingers on her glass, and speaks with a heavy tongue.

“I had a date,” she tells him, frustrated. “I _hate_ dating.”

He pauses. “So why did you go?”

She pulls away and throws back the rest of her drink, grabs the bottle from the coffee table and pours another. His gaze is like a beacon on her back and she’s warm, so warm. She shrugs, gives him a smile. “Blind date,” she announces, as if that explains everything.

Frank hums, reaches out to take the glass from her before she can drink. She lets him, knows she’s past the point where she should stop anyway. Her mouth is fuzzy and limbs delightfully loose, and she’s watching him swallow with that tipsy, half-lidded stare. “I haven’t dated since I was 17,” he tells her. “And that’s just pure luck. Maria she—she made it easy on me.”

Karen turns to face him, sits cross-legged and speaks before she can tender her words. “Was she your high school sweetheart?”

Frank chuckles fondly. “Nah. We met in the park—she was givin’ me shit for playin’ the same song on the guitar over and over.”

Karen feels her smile, imagines a much younger Frank next to her, a less scarred, less heart-heavy one. She tilts her head. “I didn’t know you played guitar.”

Frank gives her an unreadable look. He’s still holding her glass. “I expect there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, ma’am.”

But how could that be, she thinks, when I have seen the ugliest parts of you, and welcomed them? When I have seen the best parts of you, too, and have felt your kindness, and your anger, and your sorrow? “I don’t like that,” she says to him, instead. “I want to know everything.”

Frank looks away and finishes her drink. She can see the indecision on his face, although he’s trying to hide it from her.

“I wont be upset,” she murmurs, waiting.

So Frank tells her. They share another glass of whiskey, and Karen gets fuzzier around the edges but she’s hyper-focused on Frank, on his mouth and words, and the gentle anger as he speaks. He tells her about his wife, about his kids, and maybe she cries a little when he tells her how he woke up in a hospital alone with his family dead. And he tells her stories from the Marines and some are funny and some he gets quiet and closed off with shame. Karen realizes she’s creeping closer when he holds the glass to her and barely has to move, and she takes it and sets it on the table.

“And what about now?” She asks him when the sun is minutes from rising and she realizes she’s exhausted but she never wants to leave this moment.

Frank’s drunk, too. She can see it in the soft lines of his face, in his lax smile and his warm eyes. He reaches out and twirls a strand of her hair, humming. “I don’t know,” he says, sounding far away. “Just one day at a time.”

She thinks about kissing him then, but she doesn’t. Instead she looks at the time and grimaces. “I’m going to sleep,” she tells him after some consideration, then stands and looks down at him expectantly.

He looks as if he’s thinking about leaving, or even taking the couch, but at her even stare he nods and stands, following her into the bedroom. She closes the blinds and plugs in her phone, and crawls under her blankets gratefully. She closes her eyes, hears Frank kick off his boots, and the rustle of fabric as he takes off his shirt, goes fishing for the extra clothes he keeps here for emergencies. When the bed dips under him again she opens her eyes and smiles at him through the semi-darkness.

“Comfy?” She murmurs, and he lets out a breath and turns to face her.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, then pauses. “Sorry ‘bout your date.”

Karen closes her eyes. “It’s okay. The night turned out better than I thought anyway.”

Amusement colors his tone when he speaks next, and his voice barely punctures the fog around her brain. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Karen.”

His lips meet her temple, briefly, feather light. She inches towards him and he grasps her hand, pulls it to the cotton of his t-shirt. Karen sighs, soft, and buries her face in the pillow.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Frank.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr @onebatch2batch <3


End file.
